Gary “Kwan” Jue 關質聰
Gary “Kwan” Jue was born in Kaiping, China and immigrated to the U.S. in 1964. His true surname is “Kwan,” but he goes by “Jue,” the surname of his father, who was a paper son. Jue grew up in Los Angeles and attended California State University, Long Beach. He worked as an engineer then as a garment contractor, and joined the Lung Kong Tin Yee basketball team in the 1980s. After retiring in 2009, he became a full-fledged member of Lung Kong Tin Yee Association. In 2016, he was elected the president of the association, and continues to represent the Kwan family at the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association.
Gary “Kwan” Jue was interview by Susan Dickson and Susie Ling on September 28, 2024.
History of the Lung Kong Tin Yee Association
Gary “Kwan” Jue: [The] Three Kingdoms actually is about 1,700 years ago. So it is a true story between the Kwan, the Lau, and also the Zhang. They band together to form one of the, you call it a country or three kingdoms—and one of the kingdoms. So from then on, the descendants, when they come to America, they need… the new immigrants need help. They need a place—first, when they first arrived [in] America, they need a place to stay, number one. Jobs, medicine, taken care of, and other things. The immigrants, one of their first stops is Lung Kong. Lung Kong provides a first stop for the new immigrants. So because of this need, actually back in our village area, back in China, it was all between villages and villages, and between people. They do have quarrels. They do have fights. So the villagers decided to band together to form Lung Kong. That’s when it originated way back about 500 years ago. So the name Lung Kong started 500 years ago in a place called Kaiping. So the Liu [劉], Quan [關], Zhang [張], and obviously later is Zhao [趙], the four last name family band together, just to share communications, to protect themselves. So that’s how Lung Kong formed.
Timestamp: [00:07:40]
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Gary “Kwan” Jue: And then when it comes to America, the first Lung Kong is in San Francisco, where all the Chinese immigrants come and leave for Angel Island. So they took on the name of Lung Kong to help the immigrants to immigrate or to return to China, or if there is any issues, they try to step in to help to resolve it. And then it progresses to the 20s, 30s, 40s. And very slowly, the newer immigrants are a little bit wealthier, well to do, knows what to do, have some roots in the mainstream here. So Lung Kong’s—the purpose of Lung Kong is slowly changing from helping out the immigrants to resolve their issues within Chinese community, we become a full fledged 60—501(c) non-profit organization, which is a brotherhood and fraternity. So it evolves into a fraternity.
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Membership of the Lung Kong Tin Yee Association
Susie Ling: So the membership in Los Angeles, we saw a lot of members today on a Saturday morning. Are people have connections with Kaiping or not necessarily?
Gary “Kwan” Jue: Not necessarily. We have people from Taiwan, too. A few. You know, they spoke Mandarin, but mostly speak native dialect, Sze Yup [四邑]. So, I would say over 80%, about 80% of our members speak Sze Yup [四邑].
Susie Ling: Very interesting. And do you have members that speak only English?
Gary “Kwan” Jue: Yes. I would say about, I would say about 2%.
Susie Ling: And how many members do you have?
Gary “Kwan” Jue:The active member? We actually have about 150 inactive. Usually when we have a banquet, we have about 40 to 45 people. In the Golden Dragon [Restaurant].
Timestamp: [00:26:30]
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Susie Ling: Are you still involved actively in helping new immigrants? Is that still a necessary thing?
Gary “Kwan” Jue: It’s less because most immigrants are—they’re well rooted here when they come over here. And because of the distance, they live from Lung Kong, they choose, you know, not to participate in many of the association’s activities.
Timestamp: [00:29:52]
Sports and Social Activities
Susie Ling: So, as president of, and even as a member of Lung Kong, what were your—what are the activities that you know about? You talked about lion dance that we saw this morning. A woman’s dancing group.
Gary “Kwan” Jue: Yeah, dancing. I mean, you know, the folk dancing, the ping pong activity. And we have a lion dance crew. We have—we used to have a basketball team until we all grew old and can’t play no more. [Laughs] No, it lasted both over 35 years…
Susie Ling: So who would you play against?
Gary “Kwan” Jue: CCBA [Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association]. You know, we have a circuit, you know…Every tournament, we have over 100 teams….It rotates. All over the world. Yeah, it’s sponsored by the North America Sports Association.
Timestamp: [00:28:28]
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Susie Ling: Do you do specific youth activities?
Gary “Kwan” Jue: Yes. Lion’s troop, as you see from the picture. All in their 20s, 30s, 40s. And we have over about 25 members.
Susie Ling: How about little guys?
Gary “Kwan” Jue: Little guys, they come here to learn kung fu. Saturday. From the Confucius Temple, the Confucius School. There are about five or six of them come over here to practice.
Timestamp: [00:30:31]
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Gary “Kwan” Jue: Women, in all the banquets, they are the cheerleaders group. The reception group, the service group. So women did a lot of things.
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Beliefs of the Lung Kong Tin Yee Association
Gary “Kwan” Jue: In Lung Kong, we don’t talk about two things. We don’t talk about politics. We don’t talk about religion. That’s how we keep our peace.
Timestamp: [00:40:32]
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Gary “Kwan” Jue: Basically, [our] motto [was written] on a death bed of Liu Bei 劉 備. Lau Bei, he’s the Lau’s, he’s the head of the band of brothers in Three Kingdoms. So on his sick bed, he issue this creed, said “hear ye hear ye”. “Do not do evil things, no matter how small they are. Do not fail to do things, no matter how small the virtue is. Only with practice, you got the people’s support.” …We read it, this creed…[to] remind all the family what they should practice.
Timestamp: [00:41:01]
Future of the Lung Kong Tin Yee Association
Susie Ling: Many of the older associations are worried about their next generation. Do you think that Chinatown will exist for another 50 years?
Gary “Kwan” Jue: As long as there is income generated. As long as there is budget, the organization would last.
Timestamp: [00:42:26]
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Gary “Kwan” Jue: We are facing the same thing that any other, you know, Chinatown association. Few of them are already down to the few single digit members….but we try to have activities that attracts, you know, the people specially, I’m aiming at people who retired from the mainstream and spoke our native language or English. We don’t discriminate. I’m trying to get those members to come to Lung Kong, to join Lung Kong, and it was successful in a few cases. And from my own experience, you only have time to join us, Lung Kong activities, when you have a year when you have to retire. So most of our members are in their 60’s, 70’s, 80’s.
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